In an ongoing effort to curb online piracy in Singapore, the country has just passed new amendments to its Copyright Act, which allows rights holders to apply to the courts for injunctions demanding local Internet service providers such as SingTel or StarHub to block access to infringing sites.
According to the report on TODAY Online, rights owners will have the right to be heard during a blocking order application and the receiving party will also have the right to appeal. Website owners can also apply to revoke or vary the order.
Before the new amendments were passed, rights holders had to notify the Internet service providers on the infringing sites. However, Internet service providers can choose to either comply or simply ignore it.
Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Law, Indranee Rajah first announced in the parliament that the government was considering blocking certain piracy related websites back in October last year. One of the websites highlighted during the announcement was The Pirate Bay. The site is popular among consumers who download copyright infringing content including music, films, and e-books.
With Pirate Bay soon blocked, it would become a whole lot harder to watch the latest episodes of your favourite drama series.
Earlier in June, one of the founders of popular file-sharing website Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, also known as Brokep, has reportedly been arrested in Sweden by police forces after a raid on a farm in the country’s southern region. He is in custody to serve an outstanding sentence for copyright violations after being on the run for nearly two years.
